Yesterday I was driving home from the beach when I was aggressively cut off by a car in the lane next to me. I’d been driving at the rate of everyone else, with a cushion between my car and the next, because, you know, I’m a grown-up and tailgating’s not safe. This person had no chance of getting ahead, because both lanes were full and moving at the same rate. So basically, it was a total asshole move. I did not lay on my horn or give the guy the finger, as I would have years ago, but I did flash my brights and make a WTF? gesture with my arms. Well, I soon saw the guy was a crazy rageaholic. He was gesticulating wildly out his window, and yelling (at me or his poor passenger, I don’t know), and after a moment I calmed down and reminded myself that people who are jerks should be considered with compassion, not more jerkiness. And I remembered that anger begets more anger, and that it gets passed on and on and on.

Soon we were rolling up to an intersection, and I was relieved to be in the far left turn lane and he was ahead on the right. But another car had pulled up beside him, and he was screaming at the women in that car. I realized he thought that had been the car behind him, and now these innocent ladies were taking the abuse for me that I had caused with my reaction.

Instant Karma. Sometimes life delivers your lessons quickly and clearly. When you can, let the buck stop with you.

Photo Credit

Most of our lovely pictures are by local photog Jesse Miller

I SING the Body electric;
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them;
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves;
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do as much as the Soul?
And if the body were not the Soul, what is the Soul?